


Best-case scenario

by kat_fanfic



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Immortality, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Geralt and Yen break up, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Being an Idiot, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Immortal Jaskier | Dandelion, M/M, POV Jaskier | Dandelion, Post-Canon, Yen is snarky, teeny bit of emotional hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22575958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kat_fanfic/pseuds/kat_fanfic
Summary: Years since they’d parted ways, and still he’d not gotten over this stupid heart-crushing infatuation he had with the  Witcher. He was so sick of it. How very not fun, to be immortal and spend all that time being miserable.orJaskier finds out he's immortal and Geralt finally catches a clue.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg (mentioned)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 1029





	Best-case scenario

**Author's Note:**

> Love note goes to swordsandspindles for being amazing and giving lots of great comments of which I chose to ignore most like the cantankerous writer I am. ;-) You da best! <3

At first, he didn’t really notice it. That wasn’t really surprising, he figured. It wasn’t every day that one checked themselves for signs of aging, after all, and it certainly wasn’t as if Jaskier was waiting for gray hairs to pop up, or for wrinkles to start appearing. Not when he was following a grumpy Witcher around and getting into all sorts of life-threatening adventures basically on a daily basis, while simultaneously trying to be subtle about the massive crush he had on the white-haired sex-god-mutant that was Geralt of Rivia.

So, in his opinion, he couldn’t really be blamed for being oblivious. 

He found himself scoffing at people his own age more and more, though, laughing at them when they complained about random backaches or sore joints in the winter. It wasn’t something he actively thought about, this disconnect between people his age, and his own appearance and everlasting health.

It was only when he met a fellow bard, one he knew from Oxenfurt, in a little backwater town he’d forgotten the name of the moment he’d set foot in it, that it became suddenly glaringly obvious. 

“Shit, Julian,” Rasmus said, staring at him as if he’d just sprouted a tumor on his nose. “To whom did you sell your firstborn to still look like _that_?”

Jaskier, in the process of restringing his lute, turned the knob too far and almost dropped the thing altogether as the string snapped with a loud dissonant clang. “Like what?” he asked, wary. Rasmus was known to be a jokester and Jaskier had learned early on to be cautious.

“Well,” Rasmus huffed, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his face. “You know, like that. All fresh-faced and dishy, when I appear to more and more resemble a melted candle with every year that passes.” 

Jaskier frowned, a little taken aback. “To be fair,” he muttered, as he fished around in his bag for another string. “You always did look a bit, uh, waxen, even when we were younger.”

Rasmus rolled his eyes. “Always the charmer, Jaskier.” He leaned down and patted him on the shoulder. “Whatever your secret is, I hope it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass.” He left before Jaskier could think of an appropriate reply. 

That night, he spent more time in front of a mirror than he ever had before in his life. He even got his old notebooks out, trying to trace back the years. It was easy to lose a sense of how much time had actually passed when you never stayed in one place for longer than a couple of months, or went seasons without meeting a familiar face, but even so he was surprised and dismayed to find out how much time had actually gone by.

Finally, he sat down on the lumpy bed, scrubbing a hand over his face roughly. “Forty-seven?” he muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. Somehow, he was forty-seven years old and still felt like he should be in his twenties. “Holy _shit_.”

****

It was surprisingly easy to find Yennefer of Vengerberg. 

“You,” Jaskier exclaimed, wagging a finger right in her face. He didn’t get any farther than that, though, because with just one lift of her eyebrow, she’d stopped him in his tracks, locking him down with all his muscles frozen.

“Jaskier,” she greeted conversationally, continuing to eat a strange-looking yellow fruit she seemed to have conjured up from somewhere. “It’s been a while. How may I be of service this time?”

“Hnfu,” Jaskier said, indignant. “Hgfunh bhuh, hnfth hnh hu uhnf.”

She smiled at him. “Of course I could let you go, but where would be the fun in that?”

Glaring, he strained against the invisible bonds holding him. “Hnhnn!” he demanded, indicating strongly that she should stop having him on, and take a real close look at him instead because whatever was going on with him was more than a little strange and definitely had to do with her. 

Yennefer grinned at him. “What was that, dear?” She stepped closer, the smirk giving her a wolfish look that had nothing in common with the actual animal and was exceedingly more terrifying than any wild animal could ever be, and Jaskier already saw himself getting skewered or tortured or used for experiments, but then Yennefer stopped short and her lilac eyes narrowed. 

She rounded in on him, circling him, and murmured something under her breath that sounded old and foreign and commanding. A warm tingle spread through Jaskier, enveloping him from head to toe. Not entirely unpleasant, but so very _wrong_ that he’d have shuddered, had he been able to move at all.

“I see.” Yennefer’s hand cut through the air, and then all enchantments left Jaskier at once, and with a strangled gasp he fell to his knees, panting through the leftover chaos tingling through his nervous system. “Interesting.”

Jaskier looked up at her. “Interesting?” he snapped. “That’s all you have to say?”

She shrugged, looking decidedly unconcerned. “What else is there to say? Oops, the healing draught your pet Witcher made me give you seems to have some unforeseen side effects, and now humankind’s last chance for at least some relief from those blasted ballads of yours is postponed indefinitely?”

“Well,” Jaskier huffed, “yeah, that’s something you could say, I guess, if it were true. And also, hey! I have it on good authority that those ballads come across as heartfelt and sincere, and are apparently very catchy.”

Yennefer didn’t deign that with a reply. She returned to her feast, waving her hands in a circular motion, going through dishes and vegetables and fruits until something caught her fancy. “You’re immortal, bard,” she finally said. “Deal with it. And please, for the love of chaos, do it somewhere else.”

“Sure, yeah, great, perfect,” Jaskier mumbled, his thoughts a jumble of panic and elation. He’d known, of course, but he hadn’t _known_ and now he did and everything sort of simultaneously made sense and very much didn’t. 

“Now,” he said after a long moment of watching Yennefer lick melon juice off her fingers. “Immortality, that’s great obviously, but do you think there’s a way for some few changes to be added to the deal, physical ones you see, nothing big – well, nothing big I say, when in actuality-” 

His world went white.

He awoke in a ditch, his face pressed into the remains of what once had been a mighty steed and was now hardly more than a stinking pile of rotting flesh. Sitting up, he rubbed putrid bits of skin off his face, hardly even noticing the smell.

Immortality. _Holy_ shit.

****

It had been years since he’d last seen Geralt. Years in which he had wandered the continent, never aging, always singing, asking himself what the fuck he was supposed to do with eternity when _already_ he was bored out of his mind. 

Princesses had been searched for and found, wars had been waged and ultimately lost even by the winners, and still it took a dingy inn in a town that unironically called itself _Mudding_ , for them to meet again. 

“Oh,” he said, staring at the table where Geralt and Yennefer were currently in a staring contest with each other. “Uh, hi, Geralt. Yennefer.”

None of them even spared him a glance. Right. Ignoring the way his heart plummeted right down to where his stomach was supposed to be, he turned to the bar. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d try to drown his sorrows, of course, but it certainly was the first time he tried to do it with the source of his sorrow right there. 

Fuck it. Years since they’d parted ways, and still he’d not gotten over this stupid heart-crushing infatuation he had with the Witcher. He was so sick of it. How very not fun, to be immortal and spend all that time being miserable.

He was into his second mug of ale and was just about ready to leave, when a dark-haired storm cloud stepped into his way and snarled: “Seems like you got your wish.”

Jaskier stared at her blankly. He wasn’t drunk yet, at least he didn’t think so, but Yennefer seemed to make even less sense than usual and maybe the ale had been stronger than he’d realised…?

Yennefer rolled her eyes in disgust. “You two really deserve each other, one more oblivious than the other. He’s all yours then, bard.” She shouldered her way out of the inn. 

Amazing how she could make the word _bard_ sound like the worst kind of insult.

“Um,” Jaskier said to her retreating back. “Thank you?” 

When he turned, Geralt was suddenly right there, stepping into his personal space as if it hadn’t been almost a decade since they’d last been this close. “Jaskier,” the man growled, and Jaskier’s knees turned weak.

He locked them down, tilting his chin up to meet Geralt’s direct gaze. “Off again, huh?” he asked, as casually as he could with Geralt breathing down his neck like that, and he gestured with his mug in the direction Yennefer had gone. 

Even while keeping his distance, Jaskier had heard the tales of The White Wolf and The Sorceress, and their epic will-they-won’t-they, on-again-off-again shitshow of a relationship. But it wouldn’t have been the first time where he misinterpreted foreplay for a break-up either, so clarification was key.

Still staring at him, Geralt shrugged. “Off for good,” he grunted. “Mutual decision.”

Jaskier’s heart thumped in his chest. “Oh?” 

Grunting noncommittally, Geralt stepped closer still. His warm breath tickled Jaskier’s cheek and he bit back a whimper. “She let something slip before she left, about you.” 

“Lies, all of it,” Jaskier blurted.

The Witcher’s glowing eyes wandered over his face. “So, she’s not right about you not aging then?”

Oh. 

“Well,” Jaskier said, lifting his shoulders into a slight shrug. “Maybe she hasn’t lied about _everything_ per se, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of it wasn’t all conjecture and defamation.”

“Hm. She also told me to fuck off and finally go after the person I really wanted.”

Jaskier swallowed. Hard. Hope bloomed in his belly. “Oh.”

“Turns out that’s you.” There was no hesitation in Geralt, not really, but he wasn’t looking him in the eye either and his brows were knitted together in a way that usually meant that he wasn’t quite sure how to make language work. 

Charmed, Jaskier realized that the other man was being _shy_. “Hell of a realisation,” he muttered, lips twitching. 

Geralt shrugged, nodded.

“Is that why you said those things? On the mountain?” Jaskier went for a light-hearted tone, but there was a sudden tightness in his throat that made them come out a little strangled. “Because you didn’t know you liked me and were overcompensating by convincing yourself that I was annoying and useless and that you didn’t really need me in your life?” 

That was the best-case scenario, as far as Jaskier was concerned, which meant that it was very likely to be just wishful thinking. 

“That-” Geralt stopped, grimacing. “Yeah, I guess.”

Geralt’s guess was better than most people’s assurance, but Jaskier needed more. “And now…?”

Geralt’s face did a _thing_ then, and he huffed out something that was probably meant to be a laugh. “I still think you’re annoying and useless.” 

Jaskier turned to walk away from this idiot of a man, because he really didn’t need this kind of disrespect, and then he was grabbed and pulled back into a warm, hard body and Geralt was holding him like he fucking _meant_ it, and Jaskier sagged against him and wanted to cry because gods-be-damned he’d waited so damn long for this… 

“I want you in my life, though,” Geralt murmured, voice so low that the noise of the other patrons almost drowned it out. And yet, every word seared its way into Jaskier’s brain, settling there to be held like a treasure nobody could take away. “I _need_ you in my life. It just took me some time to figure it out.”

“Some time. Right.” Jaskier took a shuddering breath. “It broke me, you know. When you didn’t come after me. For almost half a lifetime we’ve known each other and for years you didn’t come. If I were a normal human man still…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. 

Geralt’s arms around him tightened, making the lute strapped to Jaskier’s back clang in protest. “I will never make the same mistake again. We belong together, Jaskier, as long as the fates allow.”

“So, this is it then?” Jaskier said, quiet but fierce, unwilling to let himself be bowled over like this, even if it _was_ everything he’d ever hoped for. “We can live happily ever after now, because the great Witcher has decided that it is so?”

Leaning back so that he wasn’t hovering over Jaskier quite so much, Geralt shook his head, the ends of his hair brushing against Jaskier’s neck in a most distracting way. “Not a decision,” he murmured, his lips hot against the shell of Jaskier’s ear. “A promise.”

A low sound of need forced itself out of his throat, and Jaskier turned in Geralt’s arms, and then they were kissing, deep and hot and _real_ and it had literally been years since Jaskier had been just devoured like that. 

It was only in that moment of total rapture that Jaskier really came to terms with how his life had turned out. He was immortal, in love with an equally immortal Witcher and that equally immortal Witcher also loved him back.

_Holy shit._


End file.
